Continuing on with my longest semi-camping trip to date of five nights ...

So I arrive at The Charleston Marina late in the afternoon. Because this is on the coast, the fog sets in and things get colder. I had to stop and pull over around 30 miles out of Coos Bay to put on my jacket. It was cold, dropping from 80 to somewhere near 60 degrees.

Pulled into the park and located my friends, a group of four couples who were each in an RV. I had a cold one with them and we chatted for a bit, before I headed over to setup my tent. I was done riding for the day and that first one sure tastes good. Good friends to have a couple iced down waiting for me after a days ride. I know you understand.

Anyway, checked in with the marina office and paid for three nights at $14/day. They have a tent area near where they rent three yurts. The yurts go for $37 a day and are pretty tricked out. Beds, electricity, couch, nice porch. Actually, the entire park is really nice with clean bathrooms and showers, laundry room, an indoor fish cleaning area with sinks, pots and free propane. The entire park is is really set up for fishing RV'rs. Pretty awesome actually. Here is a link to the marina for those of you who may be interested. http://www.charlestonmarina.com/

I head over to my area, unpack my gear and set up my tent. Maybe an hour playing with the new gear.

The thing about crab fishing is that you have to go after them when they aren't being blown around the floor
or buried into the ground. This means you have to go out during high or low tide when the current is just done going one way, but before going the other way. Slack time near the high and low tide is what it's called. The next tide is at 9 am so we make plans to meet at the docks in the morning. We have a feast of the days catch, all you can eat hot, steaming crab. Fresh crab is like all fresh sea food, better than you get anywhere. When you're eating crab after only an hour or two out of the water, all I can say is it's a tasty treat I hope you all experience.

So, I head back to the tent around 9pm and drift off to sleep in my new tent after a shower. Here is a pic of the tent. Pretty spacious with standing headroom and the Kermit!

OK, let's take a minute and talk about the Kermit. Great chair design for what it is intended to do ... breaks and packs down for motorcycle camping. My opinion, it's a 10 out of 10. It is a completely different experience to be able to stand in your tent and then, sit and tie your shoes. Or just sit and relax. A tent big enough to do both is amazing. Much nicer than sitting on the floor and crouching over. The Harley holds that Ortlieb and everything in it without any difficulty so there is absolutely no downside. In fact, the size of that Ortlieb really provided an amazing backrest. The most comfortable I've been on that little Dyna. Of course, if I take my other bike I'm going to have to scale down a bit. But not this trip!

So I wake up and head over to the fishing store in the marina to buy a three-day license. Then head out for some coffee and breakfast at this little shack in the marina, The Monkey Business. Off the hook, healthy food.

Damn near health food I tell ya. The burgers are deep fried. So are the hot dogs. You wouldn't like 'em.

Five of us meet up and head out the channel. Each fisherman can have 12 in possession, so long as they are a certain size and no females. That means 60 is the limit and no problem. Here are a few pic's of us heading out of the marina and through the channel. All of these photos were taken with my iphone 3g. Don't have many while we were fishing, but that's because I was working. Kind of.

Here is a pic of some crab pots waiting for the commercial season to open.

here's a close-up of a couple of crab pots on the dock.

So we board the boat and take off. Here are a few pic's heading out through the channel.

See that device in the forefront of the picture? That's a puller, an electric driven device that pulls the pots off the floor. Kinda like the ones you see on Deadliest Catch, only smaller.

The bow of our boat, loaded up with about a dozen traps and pots.

Out in the channel, a commercial crabber.

Here's our sorter, showing off a nice big one.

Here's me showing off a little one before I toss it back. See the smile?

Anyway, once you've caught your limit, you head back in and stop at the cleaning station at the docks where you clean the crabs.

Back at the RV we get ready to cook 'em up. They've been out of the water maybe an hour.

Boil up some water with some salt and toss 'em in.

The basic set up is a propane tank, burner, pot and good to go.

Then of course you sit down and eat. With a few cold beers and all afternoon.

So after a couple days of this, I say my goodbye and head out for Crater lake.

Well, that's my first trip report here at adv. I hope you found it enjoyable. Rubber side down! Joey